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I am very grateful.

Good morning. I will direct a question straight to Fiona Robertson. Concerns have been raised about the same actors being in the old and the new bodies, before and after reform. Several reports have highlighted that there were various fundamental issues with the SQA that required reform. Do you and, presumably, the management of the SQA accept all those characterisations and issues in their entirety, or are there any that went too far or were unfair?

If the Government does not provide that money, will you not realise the ambitions?

I have a quick question for Fiona Robertson. In your letter to the committee, you say that investment is needed, and you give a specific example. How much investment is needed? What figure are you after? Is there any indication that that investment will be forthcoming?

You are having a grand day.

I thank everyone for their submissions, which I will refer to, but I will come to you first, Graham Hutton. In the SLS submission, you say that reform is overdue, and you speak quite positively about some of the things that are happening. Earlier, we explored the fact that, fundamentally, the same people from the SQA will be popping up on the other side of reform. Does SLS have any sense that the SQA and the people who run it accept the criticisms that have been levelled in their entirety? In any event, are those who are presiding over those issues able and willing to address those criticisms as we go forward?

I am very grateful for that.

Thanks for that.

My final question is on something else that you mentioned in your opening remarks. You were asked in your remit to be bold in your conclusions and to say what needed to be done. As part of that, you recommended separating the SQA’s awarding function and its regulatory function. The University of Stirling has told the committee that the bill ignores that proposal and that that is a mistake. What is your view? If you agree with that comment, what should be done to this bill?

It is a very quick one, convener.

Good morning. The question is for Barry Black. My colleague Ross Greer asked whether this is the right time to have the bill, given that the rest of the reform agenda has perhaps not yet been bottomed out as fully as we might like. In your written submission, you said:

“This bill comes across as an attempt to protect the system as it currently is and prevent real and meaningful changes further down the road.”

Are you suggesting that the bill could be prejudicial to the further reform agenda?

Barry Black, I want to stick with you on that point and the answer that you just gave to John Mason. You have been quite outspoken about the bill, particularly with regard to the replacement for the SQA, going so far as to suggest that MSPs should reject the bill in its entirety. If that does not happen and this bill goes through largely as drafted, do you concede that it will nevertheless achieve something?